Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel on January 23, 2005 [here]
By Matthew Hay Brown
Sentinel Staff Writer

January 23, 2005

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- In the long-running debate about the political
status of this U.S. territory, the defining conflict in island
politics, independence long has finished a distant third to
commonwealth and statehood.

The failure of the main independence party to win enough votes in
November to stay on the ballot for 2008 seemed only the latest in a
series of setbacks for the movement.

But as Washington signals that the days of commonwealth may be nearing
an end, while questions persist about whether Congress ever will accept
this Spanish-speaking Caribbean island as the 51st state of the union,
some independentistas see events turning in their favor.

Which is why a month after finishing his customary distant third in
Puerto Rico's gubernatorial election, this time with less than 3
percent of the vote, independence leader Rubén Berríos looked out to
his supporters and declared victory.

In the weeks after the November election, volunteers of his Puerto
Rican Independence Party had gathered the signatures of more than
100,000 island voters -- enough to get the PIP back on the ballot for
2008. Now Berríos was thanking the faithful for pulling off the
"political feat" that would enable the most prominent independentista
organization in this U.S. territory to retain its major-party status.

Critics say the party's failure for the first time in 36 years to earn
enough votes to maintain its place on the ballot calls into question
the future of a movement that once represented the aspirations of
nearly half the population.

"I think that the independence movement has been weakened
dramatically," says statehood advocate Kenneth McClintock, president of
the island Senate. "I don't think independence has any future."

But independentistas see Puerto Rico's eventual separation from the
United States as less a matter of electoral politics than of historical
inevitability.

In spite of the election results -- and the failure of independence to
garner even 5 percent of the vote in any of the three plebiscites on
the island's political status since 1967 -- Manuel Rodríguez Orellana
sees independence as the only future for Puerto Rico.

"It is the United States that will decide, and I don't see any good
reason for Americans to want Puerto Rico to be a state," says Rodríguez
Orellana, secretary of the Puerto Rican Independence Party for North
American affairs. "Why should you take in as a state a Latin American
nation of the Caribbean that is Spanish-speaking, to whom you would
have to pay more than any other state and receive less, and give them a
larger congressional representation than more than half the states?"

For partisan Washington, there's another issue: That representation --
two senators, six representatives and eight electoral votes -- is
likely to be dominated by Democrats. Puerto Rico would be a blue state.

With the declining strategic value of the island after the end of the
Cold War and of exercises on Vieques, Washington does appear to be
rethinking its relationship with Puerto Rico.

Republicans and Democrats have characterized commonwealth as a
transitional status, not a permanent solution. A White House task force
is studying acceptable status options for the island; for its co-chair,
President Bush chose an adviser who once said islanders eventually
would have to choose between statehood and independence.

But if commonwealth is transitional and statehood is unlikely,
independence means cutting loose 3.9 million U.S. citizens, the great
majority of whom have voted consistently to maintain or strengthen ties
with the United States -- not to sever them.

It was not always thus. Residents today still commemorate the uprising
of 1868, when several hundred separatists briefly seized the central
mountain town of Lares from the Spanish authorities and declared a
short-lived Republic of Puerto Rico before withdrawing.

Some independentistas welcomed the 1898 U.S. invasion of the island
during the Spanish-American War. But when Washington held on to the
island as a military base, the separatists redirected their rhetoric
against the United States. By the 1930s the pro-independence Puerto
Rican Liberal Party was the island's most popular political party,
winning 46 percent of the vote in the 1936 election for the island's
delegate to Congress.

Washington only drew its possession closer. Congress granted U.S.
citizenship to islanders in 1917, as the United States entered World
War I, and cemented the current commonwealth relationship in 1952, in
the early days of the Cold War.

Concerted efforts by officials in San Juan and Washington combined to
undermine the separatists. A gag law chilled advocacy for independence,
and the Puerto Rico Police Department and the FBI infiltrated
law-abiding independentistaorganizations, kept files on their members
and in some cases disrupted their activities.

The island economy, meanwhile, was growing increasingly dependent on
federal handouts. In the three status plebiscites that have been held
by the island government, voters in 1967, 1993 and 1998 opted to
maintain commonwealth status over seeking statehood, with independence
finishing a distant third each time.

Berríos -- known here simply as "Rubén" -- gained exposure and acclaim
in recent years for his leadership in the broadly supported campaign to
end Navy practice bombing on Vieques. But earning just 2.67 percent of
the vote November in his fifth run for governor -- less than the 3
percent he needed to keep the party on the ballot -- was a new low. It
was the worst finish yet by a PIP candidate for governor and the first
time since 1968 that the party failed to win the votes necessary to
stay registered.

There was some good news for the PIP. Its at-large candidates for the
island House and Senate, incumbent Rep. Víctor García San Inocencio and
attorney María de Lourdes Santiago, once again earned more votes than
any of their opponents.

But with former Gov. Pedro Rosselló making a strong bid for another
term -- and pledging to resume his campaign for statehood -- thousands
of traditional independentista voters cast their gubernatorial votes
instead for commonwealth-supporting Aníbal Acevedo Vilá, seen as having
the best chance of beating him.

Rodríguez Orellana, the PIP official, says the outcome caught the party by surprise.

"This was kind of a wake-up call for many of our members," he says. "We
all sort of took for granted that we would retain our franchise. We
didn't foresee this hurricane Rosselló that came through, or the
strength of it."

The island-based political analyst Juan Manuel García Passalacqua says
the successful courting of independentistas by Acevedo Vilá has caused
a "crisis within the independence party."

"That phenomenon is merely emerging," García Passalacqua says.

Nicole Ortíz, a business student at the University of Puerto Rico,
calls herself an independentista -- but did not vote for Berríos.

"The party of independentistas here, they're satisfied with just a
small percentage of the votes," she says. "They don't really want to
win. That's what the people see."

Ortíz, who voted for Rogelio Figueroa of the upstart Puerto Ricans for
Puerto Rico party, says she wants to see someone other than Berríos
leading the PIP.

"He doesn't let any younger people with other ideals come in," she
says. "Let another person run for governor. I think people are tired of
seeing him always there."

Rodríguez Orellana, who has heard the criticism before, says the party
has welcomed and promoted young members. He cites the party's electoral
commissioner, Juan Dalmau, and Santiago, the first PIP woman to win a
seat in the Senate. But he says Berríos is the leader.

"I didn't see anybody asking Gandhi for his resignation, or Mandela or
Arafat, for that matter," he says. "While we are an electoral party,
we're also a national liberation movement. That makes us different from
the other parties."

Rodríguez Orellana sees Washington pushing the issue sooner rather than
later. Since the election, the party has reclaimed its place on the
ballot.

"I think that we're already picking up," Rodríguez Orellana says.
"People are in a confident mood. They've been energized by the need to
go out and get signatures. I can't say we're in great shape, because
it's impossible, but I think we're doing OK.